The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Nigeria’s rice crisis

    Crisis, crisis everywhere, not a sector is spared. They have become so pervasive that even an aspect of our life that is as innocuous as our major staple food, rice has been afflicted. Have you ever stopped to ponder what would become of Nigeria without rice? Do you know that rice is eaten daily in nearly every home in every corner of Nigeria? Do you know that rice is almost as crucial to the Nigerian household today as petrol and like petrol, it is something that we have the capacity to produce in abundance and export to other countries but instead, we import it?

    To extend the comparison with petrol further, in the 70s to mid-80s, Nigeria was producing enough petrol for her use. It was the same with rice; Nigeria’s production actually peaked at about one million tons per annum when there was a ban on importation. This was up from about 450,000 tons of local production in the 70s. But with oil boom, by the mid 80s local production dwindled giving was to massive importation. Then, Nigeria had large rice belts sprawling from Sokoto, Benue, Abakaliki and Ogun axis. It was a major industry that comprised production, milling and distribution; providing food, jobs, livelihood and wealth to millions in the rice zones. It was an industry that over time, created well-knit enterprising communities, organic, prideful in their self-sufficiency and tradition of productivity.

    Now why is Hardball lapsing into a reverie of a long-lost utopia, you might be wondering? What is the point of all this if we all are well aware that in the past three decades or so, Nigeria’s rice economy has become almost a tragic situation with a quantum of importation that is not surpassed by any other country today. In fact our importation ramifies nearly all major staple foods like maize, beans and even palm oil. But rice is the one that has reached crisis level now.

    First, the federal government at the beginning of this year, arbitrarily jerked up duty and tariff on rice importation bringing them to a total of 110 percent in Nigeria while in neighbouring countries like Benin Republic and Togo, import duties on rice remain at about 30 percent. Why would any sane businessman ship through our ports if there is a slight chance that he can smuggle it through the borders. The profit is so tempting that those who are ordinarily law-abiding would think twice or risk extinction. Here lies the rice crisis: about 80 percent of rice consumed in Nigeria today is smuggled into the country by a cabal.

    The negative imports of government’s thoughtlessness are numerous and far-reaching. First, Nigeria loses revenues in hundreds of million dollars to her neighbours. Two, genuine importers are put out of business and some may be forced into the illegality of smuggling. Three the Customs is put under immense pressure; compromised and overwhelmed. Four, the backward integration investments of genuine importers in local rice production and processing plants will go to waste in another year if this frenzy of smuggling is not checked immediately. The reason is that the price of a bag of the local rice is twice the price of the imported one. The modest efforts being made by some stakeholders to grow rice at home will soon be rubbished.

    Federal government had increased the levy paid on imported rice ostensibly to curb importations with a view to outright ban in a few years. But no effort is being made to encourage or develop local production. The rice development fund is not being deployed anywhere. All these going on and government seems so inured to it all. This will never happen in any other country; orchestrated crises like this in every sector of our national life cannot be any way to run a country

  • ASUU: As Omotola makes a fist

    There is no word to describe the beauty of this daintiest of woman. Put differently, her beauty defies words. It is the kind of beauty that would trouble and torment the soul of any man who beholds it; especially those imbued with lascivious spirit. Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (along with a few others) is the face of Nigeria’s movie business eponymously known as Nollywood. Tagged Omosexy by her fans, the languid, fledgling young mother of four, who hit our consciousness nearly two decades ago has today, grown into a veritable screen goddess and an international icon. She is a UN ambassador; early in the year, she made the Time magazine Top 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Today, she stands as the ultimate Nigerian diva, epitomising the very best of her age and our show business.

    Particularly endearing is the notion that like good wine, she gets better with age garnering more international acclaim, raising standards and reenacting pure genius in her new works. For instance, in a recent film Ije, (The Journey), in which she starred alongside Genevieve Nnaji, another luscious Nollywood star, Omotola marshalled a performance that would stand out even in Hollywood. Of course she has a closet bursting with awards from far and near. Such is the standing of this home-made belle who burst forth into the world by sheer brilliance, tenacity and hard work.

    Well, do not think that Hardball has become so suddenly besotted to this fair queen, this lush, delectable mass that he has resorted to writing a love sonnet in another form. Far from it (though not entirely, terribly, too far (am I stuttering?)).But the key point to note here is that Omotola has struck a chord that resonates strongly with Hardball (hmn!?) and of course with the lost denizens of the Government-ASUU imbroglio. She may have raised her game once more by delving into a terrain hitherto uncharted by the people of her clan. Last Tuesday, Omotola lent her sexy voice to the ASUU logjam, making a bold and audacious statement on her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

    While other celebrities were probably out there in exotic resorts making the most of the Sallah Holiday, she chose the period to spare a thought for Nigerian students who she described as “wasting away”. Hear her: “Education is a right, not a privilege. This should be the first responsibility of every parent, state and country to their child. Why are students of the most populous black nation in the world, ‘Giant of Africa’, not in school?

    “Where are all the educational funds? Why is there a crippling silence when Nigerian schools have been shut for almost four months and youths are wasting away with their future uncertain? Barka de Sallah. As we pray, eat, and relax on the occasion of this holiday, our youths should spare sometime to think. Youths, your destiny is in your hands.” Not even Hardball and a combination of the most cynical social critics in the land could have mustered such hail of umbrage and captured it in such powerful phrases and imagery.

    She talks about “crippling silence”, “youths wasting away” and education being a right. She pondered the huge and numerous education funds and ended by charging the youth to “think” and take their destiny in their hands. There cannot be a better and more influential voice speaking up for the Nigerian students at this time. She has a combined following on her two social media platform of no fewer that 1.5 million people. That is worldwide and that is massive.

    It is hoped that the starkly important message that Hardball and numerous other well-meaning Nigerians have been unable to pass to our obdurate government, the beautiful voice has done it. But let it be noted that by toying with ASUU’s demands, by failing to understand the import of education in today’s world, this government, this presidency to be precise, is invoking trouble.

  • Hardball returns to school

    I woke up today to discover that I am a dullard and I have vowed to return to school. And make no mistake about it, in this re-education of yours sincerely he is going to start as a fresher in the 101 classes. Not as a graduate student or as a senior but a starter through and through. And he will not be learning such stuff as he was taught at the good old University of Lagos, UNILAG, but will pursue a brand new philosophy; a whole new world of learning and education. We will return to the details of this new age curriculum shortly.

    Hardball has been sent into this serendipitous discovery of the urgent need to return to school by a report that our dear Mujahid Asari-Dokubo has established a university in neighbouring Benin Republic. Before you begin to eat your heart out in case you are learning about this for the first time, he also lives there now. You may now exhale. And while you ponder whether you want to go ahead and set up your own Ekotedo Veranda Force or you want to call up Mujahid and join up with his Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), Hardball has determined to return to school.

    Hardball will of course apply to Mujahid University, Benin, MUB (not sure what the real name is yet) to begin my re-education. That would be upon the understanding that MUB would devise easy-to-apply curriculum and introduce niche, avant-garde courses suitable for failed and failing nations. Having determined that Nigeria and half of African continent is semi-jungle and would inexorably devolve into a vast Hobbesian wasteland before it would repair if ever, one had better get equipped to survive in the years ahead. As it is, it has become foolhardy hanging on to the classical British education we acquired from conventional tertiary institutions.

    For instance, Hardball has been writing and reporting the activities of Mujahid for over a decade and see where we are today. The blighter has proven to be far more perspicacious and ahead of his time by dropping out of Nigeria’s so-called university (of Calabar); electing to fight for his freedom and very life from an inept elite starkly incapable of running a country. Today he has not only managed to carve a safe haven for himself, he has created a university in his image. Today, our wonky universities have been shut for nearly four months as if we never needed them in the first place, but Mujahid University will not only never experience such misfortune of an indefinite closure, it will teach only life skills and survival tactics in a crazy new world.

    Again, consider that your brother Hardball cannot tell with 100 per cent certainty, the difference between the nozzle of a gun and its butt. And should an emergency come upon us today, he may face the danger of holding a pistol with the nozzle faced to his heart or worse, his scrotum (well, depends on which you consider worse!). Now you see the urgent need for him to get off his ill-educated bum and enroll quickly at Mujahid University, Benin. There, he is sure to encounter such courses as Practical Political Science: apart from the usual stuff from Harold Laski, will entail courses in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat tactics in a free-for-all parliamentary bust-up.

    At MUB, the study of History will no longer be a subject about empires and personalities but about coup d’etat, guerrilla wars and freedom fighters. No verbiage and tales anymore as a course in Practical History will entail courses in the quick assemble of IEDs, simulated assault rifles combats and how to identify and overwhelm weak governments with a small army.

    Hardball will return to school soon because in the years ahead, the world will no longer have room for couch potatoes and supine fellows who claim to be writers. The world will not have mercy on men who cannot forcefully take what they want from their environment. This is the moral of Mujahid Asari-Dokubo’s tale.

     

  • AS-UU make your bed, II

    Friday September 13, 2013, Hardball had offered part one of the above and had noted then that “Nigeria has prepared a bed of thorns and scorpions for itself with the lax manner successive governments have toyed with education, especially at the tertiary level.” Now another month has passed in the ASUU impasse. The strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is in its fourth month. Four months of all universities in the land shut down lock and barrel; four months of doodling; four months of bottom-dragging inertia; four months of indecisiveness; four months of national lethargy; four months of self-damaging incompetence; four months of numbing opacity… and it seems that the malady will continue for many more months.

    This long-drawn strike is the story of our education, it is the story of our government, it is the story of our country and the very tale of our lives. There cannot be another country in the world where public tertiary institutions are wilfully damaged in this manner with government resigned or inured to the catastrophe it is bound to unleash. Something must be wrong if government had an agreement with lecturers in 2009, reviewed same last year yet would not deign to keep the pact.

    Government pretended to discuss with the striking teachers but from the nature and constitution of the people leading the government team, it is obvious that there was no intention either to negotiate or reach a denouement. In fact, it appears government seeks to paper over the problem as usual and move on as it has done in the past few decades. To lay it bare indeed, where on earth did the Federal Government find Governor Suswam of Benue State (Hardball struggles with his first name now!) to lead negotiation with lecturers? Just because this fellow chanced upon the Government House in Makurdi, suddenly elevated him into a chief negotiator in such crucial matter as tertiary education crisis in Nigeria? A time-marker, a man Hardball cannot remember for anything remarkable in six years at the helm of a state (apart from his beautiful face getting chubbier like that of an agbala nwanyi, a woman at her very prime).

    When Suswam failed as he was doomed to, some people had mooted drafting former President Olusegun Obasanjo to help government untie the ASUU knot. But the wail of disapproval must have warned President Goodluck Jonathan against it. Obasanjo, like Ibrahim Babangida is decidedly anti-intellectual and if you look closely you will notice the huge chips the twain still carry on their shoulder because they did not pass through the walls of any Ivory Tower. They will have to carry their boulder unto the hereafter because you were either there or you weren’t and mark you, garnering a dozen honorary degrees or owning half a dozen universities will not change a thing. In brief, both Babangida and Obasanjo did what could be described as eternal damage to our universities. The rot in the system deepened in their times, thus they cannot face ASUU today.

    But Hardball finds it befuddling that the Federal Government does not realise that anyone, just any adult who attended school and has commonsense can solve the ASUU matter. We just need to deal plainly and honestly with the teachers; we need to recognise that their demands are genuine and are ultimately in the overall interest of the country. Once that is understood by both parties, we address the immediate and pressing issues and draw up schedules for meeting the rest in an incremental basis. It’s as simple as that; it’s plain dealing, stupid. But as we say on the streets of Lagos, the thing wey man wan chop no allow am see road.

    But Hardball must not fail to put it on record that we are eating up our tomorrow, we are arresting our future when we instal cowboy politicians to manage our education. AS-UU make your bed…

  • Princess Oduah and the ‘bar room drunks’

    Princess Oduah and the ‘bar room drunks’

    Hardball knows that trick too well, it’s an old trick deployed by wayward Nigerian husbands. Here it goes: Mr. Husband has been home-weary and recently he hangs out more with the ‘boys’, he stays out late, perhaps having found new pleasures in new ‘pastimes’. Of course madam won’t be making jokes about hussy’s new ways. In the manner of every reasonable woman, she would fight to reclaim her man. She would start by gentle pleas and complaints about late nights and hussy’s odious breath. If the irritation persists, she would rant, rave and even attempt physical enforcement of her rights. But Mr. Man who would have strayed very deep into the ‘forest’ of perdition would simply devise an ingenious defence mechanism. He would start by calling madam ‘too possessive’ ‘nagging wife’ or ‘night watch’. If this does not ‘wash’ with madam, he would raise his game by deploying attack as the best form of defence. As he lumbers home late one of those nights, he would have rehearsed his lines and a mere ‘welcome’ from madam would elicit an explosion from hussy, like: “Welcome what, madam sentry? Next, you would issue me a query on my whereabouts, then you would lecture me and nag and on and on… please I can do without any ‘welcoming’ when I return, just allow me some space. I beg you in the name of everything you cherish,” he would feign uncontrollable anger.

    This long-winded introduction concerns our dear Aviation Minister Princess Stella Oduah. Last Monday, she played the wayward husband card when she chose to oblige us earthlings the reason why Dana Airlines had to be grounded. Recall that last Thursday, October 4, Nigeria suffered yet another air blight with the fall of an Associated Airlines craft in Lagos perishing about 21 passengers and crew. Another near mishap followed a day after and in quick succession, by Monday, October 7, Dana Air was unceremoniously shut down, leaving both management and customers in disarray.

    But when Nigerians wondered why the sector is in such a spin, the minister was so riled she railed at them: “…When you hear bar comments from drunks and addicts… making comments that have zero bearing on reality, it is very annoying. What I will advise the public really is to recognise the fact that aviation is a very professional area…” She also said such things as accidents being inevitable and an act of God. In her fish wife umbrage she uttered so much illogic but let us just point out a few.

    Hardball always knew Oduah to be a trader (ok, we concede that petroleum trading is a notch above frozen fish), but when did she become an aeronautic engineer or the more recondite avionics specialist? To think that just two moons ago she was made Aviation minister and we were afraid for her because she knew not much difference between an airport and a tank farm. Today, she calls the rest of us ‘drunks and addicts’ just because we ask questions about basic issues of aviation safety and regulation. But we insist that if the last mishap had not occurred, Dana would still be flying today. It stands to reason therefore to infer that if the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), under her watch had been upfront with its duties, may be that crash would not have happened.

    Recall that about one year ago, when a Dana craft crashed, killing over 150, Oduah hurriedly returned the airline to the air as if the life of the nation was at stake. This was in spite of protestations from Nigerians and families of accident victims still largely left in the lurch as to their insurance claims.

    We will overlook Madam Oduah’s uncouth language and arrogance and just note that she is sounding like a wayward Nigerian husband.

  • (REV) Father goes to court

    Ah, the world has grown old and weary; her walls are coming down. The dog grows horns and the lion now eats yam. Just in the same manner a Catholic bishop is in a mortal combat with one of his priests. As you read this, the reverend gentleman is probably still in detention without bail; as reported, he forcibly removed from the pulpit, stripped naked and bundled away along with most of his congregation – would the Catholic Church desecrate itself? This, as we learnt, was after attempts to kidnap him failed. Another bid to defame him by branding him insane and make it seem he set his own parsonage ablaze also failed. It has been an all or nothing fight between bishop and priest since 2009. Now His Eminence has succeeded in putting Father in the dock in a court presided over by a judge of ‘the world’.

    He accuses his priest of – would you believe it – armed robbery and kidnapping, attempted murder and conspiracy! Ah, how our walls come crashing down; how the pillars buckle under the weight of a remorselessly wanton world!

    Hardball puts it upfront that he is not a Catholic; but when you have attained middle age as Hardball has, you are bound to begin to appreciate Catholicism and all the good it stands for. Apart from the glorious Christian teachings and the church’s rich doctrine, the Catholic Church has grown to become the world’s alternate government and in fact, in some climes, it is the de facto government.

    Of course, this enclave of the Pontiff will never fail to represent an object of immense fascination to all discerning minds – its great traditions, its vast tome of intellectual offerings and archives; its centuries old institutions of great learning and teachings; ancient monasteries in far-flung corners of the world, havens for spiritual renewal and rediscovery. Not to forget the corps of deeply educated clergymen, perhaps the most enlightened people to be found anywhere extending light to even the most extreme corners of the universe.

    Consider the comforting presence of the denomination- both physically and spiritually – across the surface of the earth; the magnitude and magnificence of its monuments, community by community. Consider its impact on education and learning, from cradle to the grave for millions of people. No other denomination or extra-governmental body has such deep reach. What about its 1.2 billion population present in every corner of the world?

    This old lady, the wizened body of the Lamb has been through good and bad times in the manner of all things of flesh and spirit – from the age of licentious Popes through Reformation to this digital age, the Catholic Church has been buffeted as of violent storm against a ship. The current being horrific matters of paedophilia and child abuse among the Catholic clergy which may have prompted the Pope to begin to contemplate the revocation of the oath of celibacy.

    However, the matter between Rt. Rev. John Okoye, Catholic bishop of Awgu Diocese in Enugu State and one of his priests, Rev. Father James Ede of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Mmaku, may well open a new, unsavoury vista for the church especially in Nigeria. Apart from further debasing the Catholic establishment in the eye of the people, it may initiate a spiral of feuding and bad blood in the fold across the country. This matter has festered into a dirty, stinking wound for over four years that one wonders whether the church has lost grip in Nigeria. Whatever happened to her conflict resolution and disciplinary processes? The matter brims with so much sordid details that even the tussle for leadership in motor parks pales beside it. Do this bishop and his poor priest still administer the holy sacraments and hear confessions? Hardball was used to seeing clergymen in ‘husband and wife’ churches fight dirty and seek for resolution from the worldly police and court, never in the Catholic Church; the walls are indeed, tumbling.

     

  • Nunc Dimitis for PHCN

    Be gone! Away with you harbinger of darkness. No tears for you Tormentor-in-Chief of the Federal Republic. For several decades you be-straddled the land and like evil incubus, you would not yield to light, casting deathly shadows over the land. Like a swarm of locusts you left the farmlands bare, voiding our harvests. Be gone! Away with you harbinger of woes.

    Power Holding Company of Nigeria, (PHCN) is no more. It ceased to exist on September 30, 2013 when a swarm of private owners took over bits of its businesses. Adieu PHCN, the abiku who came in different guises and stole the spark in our eyes. PHCN the scion of amadioha that turned out cold as a mucous; nary an ember flickered in you! Would a lion sire a snake? Be gone with thee and may you never reincarnate; yes, may you never return here. We have nailed you to the iroko tree so that you will end up at the middle of no where. We have impaled you deep in the ancient forest. Let the crows pick you clean. Be gone you swathe of darkness.

    Should you return, we shall arraign you before the court of sango, the one who is thunderous of speech and breathes fire on felons. The one whose wrath is dealt in megawatts wired through the sinews of the gods. You who blinkered the light of our great land he will make you swear by the waters of the Kainji. May I come back a turbine if I caused grief by willfully inflicting darkness on the people; may I be as decrepit as the egregious Egbin thermal plant if I fiddled with figures.

    Away and be gone with you! Go the way of the ogbanje on his seventh journey of no return. Now that you have been marked and diced up (like that restless fetal spirit) we shall inter you with the analogue meters of your creation so that we might erase your foot step of folly. We shall also throw in a brigade of that stalwart little gasoline tiger, the rascal Chinese wonder as a fitting memorial to your tumultuous sojourn among us. May you enjoy their noisome company even in the hereafter and may you be ensconced in the company of a vengeful multitude of our fume asphyxiated souls wailing for justice.

    Be gone, unbundled behemoth that we may pick the pieces of our dark wasted years; be gone that we may retool the power plants of our lives and re-augment the megawatts of our existence. You will never have to hold the power of our company anymore; not even the candle of our lives. Your Lugardian transformers which remind of torture chambers will sooner be sent after you. Please keep them as mementoes of your anachronistic tradition.

    Hardball bid you farewell, mirthful that I witnessed this day of our epiphany I sing you this nunc dimitis. I shed nary a tear for you, no fond memories either. Anything else will do; anybody else but you. I join in sweeping the streets after you; I will lend a hand in clearing the cobwebs of those dreary decades. We will make new dungarees and acquire fresh sets of hard hats. We will change our logos and slogans. We will clean out and revamp your jaded edifices. Most of all, we will retool our mind and unlearn our trade. We will forever sing and dance on the grave of your infamy and leave you in the hoary shadows of the past as we march into the horizon of our new sun – and our un-flickering power.

     

  • Jona, Ama, the hunchback and the witchdoctor – a fable

    Once upon a time, when Hardball was not born, the fable goes that a certain hunchback, being weary of backing his life’s burden like a rusack, started to seek a cure for his condition. He had travelled the length and breadth of the land to no avail until he met this wily witchdoctor. Upon diagnosis, he opined that the hunch was not ordinary, that the mortal baggage was the result of the sin of his fathers now stacked on his back by the gods as a living testimony. There was antidote, of course, but precedent upon the condition that unlike his father, he was a good man.

    I am a man of honour, he said promptly, you will find corroboration in the entire clan and beyond, he said frantically. Hold your peace, the medicine man said gently, the gods of the land do not seek corroboration they are the story, from the beginning to the end. Was it not your fathers to the fifth generation who gathered this evil load you now have to lug about? Why is it your lot to carry it? Though you look innocent and benign, would you be one of those who have a good face and dark heart? Would you kill in the bush and dash to the foot path and ask who has killed? If you are not double-faced, do you forgive? Are you low and mean-spirited like a rapscallion?

    You know the gods would forgive anything, even murder and serial adultery (which by the way has grown to a scourge around here), but not an unforgiving nature and meanness of heart. Not to forget is to play god and no man is god and our gods abhor any man playing god. To be mean and ungracious is to assume eternity. Only god is eternal and man, miserable man, will always come and go like the seasons. What is man to go to bed with grudges, with bitterness and ill-will towards another man? Who does he think stir him back to life each day? Ah, man! Fleeting breath, morning dew, blooming flower that exfoliates in splendor and majesty only when its end is nigh!

    Anyway, never mind the digression, I am no god myself, I only bear message. I will give you antidote to your hump but there is a caveat: if you are not the good man you pose to be, you will end up suffering double jeopardy because as you cure your hunch back, your stomach will protrude until… so do you still want the herbs? Yes indeed I want the herbs, the hunchback replied, the whole village world can attest to my obvious good nature. Well then, replied the witchdoctor, here you are, take this bunch of herbs, warm it in an earthen pot and dab three times on your back in the morning and at night. Do it for seven days and present yourself let us see whether you are as much a good man, as you claim.

    Hunchy promptly set about his treatment, but he had a ‘lump’ in his heart. Ten years ago a dainty young man had made off to town with the only woman that ever flashed him a hearty smile. He had never lived it down. The ‘sore’ had festered in his heart all these years and he would harm the young man the instant he sets his eyes on him. He is convinced he has justification to retaliate against this impudent young man. He kept soothing his back with warm herb. By the third day he could feel enormous relieve on his back … but his stomach has become discomfiting. By the fifth day he could barely rise to his feet… the hunchback’s troubles it seemed, had been brought forward. He could never present his self to the medicine man. Never again… MORAL: be quick to forgive, shake hands, make up and move on because you are not god.

  • Wanted for Jonathan: a refresher class on corruption

    Wanted for Jonathan: a refresher class on corruption

    President Goodluck Jonathan should act as an example on corruption. He should not add to the problem. Recently rather than be the moral authority in chief, he clouded matters by saying that corruption is not Nigeria’s worst problem. What did he mean by that? As a PHP holder, even if not in the English language, we expect him to understand the power and nuances of the language. He has undermined the power of corruption to destroy any positive thing in this country.He made the assertion in the lackluster presidential chat. But he seemed to have surrendered to gaffes in the matter of corruption. Not long before that, precisely on the verge of his bell-ringing visit to the United States, he said that the issue of corruption was not his responsibility but that of the Nigerian people. He probably forgot that he has a tag to his office, and it bears president and commander in chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.He even asserted that on the issue of corruption, private and public sectors were culpable, and he confessed that he had his foot in his mouth. He did not possess the audacity to mention names because, according to him, the same culprits who bastardised this nation would attack him. He confessed to fear. He confessed to being the comamander in chief who could not guarantee his own security, so how could he guarantee that of hardball or any other person in the country?How do you tackle corruption without courage? Nowhere in the world can we do that. The first institutional prop to fight corruption is the rule of law. That guarantees that no one is above the law, and that means, whether president or governor, civilian or general, the law takes an equal look at the citizen, and consequences fall on violators without fear or favour.If the president, who is supposed to be the first guarantor of that institution has a foot in his mouth, can we say we are surprised that the corruption sore is at its most festering today and the battle against it at its nadir?Are we surprised that he extended a pardon to his kinsman and former boss Diepreye Alamieyesiegha, former governor of Bayelsa State? He insisted on that in spite of international outrage and condemnation. Are we surprised that he presides over a party that an ex-convict on corruption, Bode George, still preens as a big and influential party apparatchik. George carries himself, especially in southwest politics, when he should shrink in penitence and rejig his sense of duty to his fatherland.Jonathan may need a refresher course on corruption, so he can know how to talk about it and actually tackle it.

  • Jonathan, hearken to Cardinal Okogie

    A few days ago Hardball hoisted a similar title as above: “Jonathan, hearken to Nwabueze,” it blazoned. Professor Benjamin Nwabueze, an octogenarian, a statesman, eminent legal scholar and prolific author is among the very few Nigerians to suggest to President Goodluck Jonathan to jettison his quest for a second term in office. Nwabueze had led The Patriots, a club of highly influential Nigerians to the Presidential Villa, Abuja. After a closed-door meeting with the president, Nwabueze while addressing correspondents, made it known that his personal advice to the president was that he should forget about contesting for another term in 2015. The wizened elder had stated very clearly why he was of such conviction.

    Today, same advice comes from another revered and well-regarded quarter in the person of Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie. The 77-year-old clergyman held sway for 30 years as the crusading Catholic Archbishop of Nigeria. Ten years ago, he was ordained a Cardinal from which position he retired recently. In his usual blunt manner, Okogie in a recent interview said pointedly to President Jonathan to forget about running for a second term.

    “If I were Jonathan, I will not try it (running for a second term in 2015) because the writing on the wall does not favour it… Jonathan will be there for almost six years (by 2015), there was a time he was vice, and now president for four years, what is he looking for again?” He compared President Jonathan to former President Olusegun Obasanjo who still roils from his obnoxious attempt to run for a third term in office. “What was Obasanjo looking for in third term (?)” The fiery clergyman also noted the issue of an alleged agreement by the president with some of his colleagues to the effect that he would serve for just one term and suggested that the president should honour his word if he ever gave it.

    Hardball hereby acknowledges that the president is entitled to a second term in office and that it is his prerogative whether to run or not. It is also to be noted that he has a difficult as well as delicate decision to make. Apart from Nelson Mandela who famously chose to serve just one term, not many heads of state have free-willingly elected to hand power over when they are statutorily entitled to it.

    Having said that, President Jonathan must always remember that it is never the number of years a leader perches on the thrown that makes him a great man of history; the Mandela example is there for all to learn from. It is accomplishments, character, legacy and honour that one brings to the office that endure. If his running would imperil his party; if another term for him has the slightest potential of leading to the death of Nigerians and the destruction of the country, surely he needs to subject his quest to the deepest of reflections.

    There is also that little matter of honour: if President Jonathan truly gave his word that he would do only one term in office, just as Cardinal Okogie has pointed out, he would do well to keep his word. Though honour may seem intangible and easy to trample upon, it remains our veritable garb, without which, we are naked. And even if it is as much as soiled, we are tainted. Would Jonathan want to be a president who is naked and bereft of esteem in the eyes of the world?

    Finally, Jonathan may need to hearken to the old Cardinal and shun the teeming sycophants around him who would urge him on for their selfish motives. He must listen and reflect if only for the fact that he never dreamt he would be president of Nigeria and now that providence has ensconced him onto that exalted position, he must remember that there is life after Aso Rock.